My experience has been that most teachers/school officials will work with parents when the kids are going to be out even for unexcused absences if you tell them beforehand. They don't want the kids to fall behind.

The way I see it, the unexcused absence deal is to flag kids that may be in trouble. How often do we hear about abused or murdered kids that haven't been in school in weeks or months? Don't we wonder why the authorities weren't notified or no one at the school looked further into all of the absences?

I know that this is the extreme and not at all what Medussa is talking about. Just my $.02

My experience has been that most teachers/school officials will work with parents when the kids are going to be out even for unexcused absences if you tell them beforehand. They don't want the kids to fall behind.
The way I see it, the unexcused absence deal is to flag kids that may be in trouble. How often do we hear about abused or murdered kids that haven't been in school in weeks or months? Don't we wonder why the authorities weren't notified or no one at the school looked further into all of the absences?

I know that this is the extreme and not at all what Medussa is talking about. Just my $.02

Originally Posted by solange

Very true. Or just kids whose parents don't send them to school. I know parents who don't care if their small children go to school or not. My cousin will keep her kids out of school for weeks just because she doesn't feel like taking them.

But, that being said, if the teacher knows about it beforehand, the child is doing well in school, and has regular attendance, I don't see how it should be a problem.

My experience has been that most teachers/school officials will work with parents when the kids are going to be out even for unexcused absences if you tell them beforehand. They don't want the kids to fall behind.

The way I see it, the unexcused absence deal is to flag kids that may be in trouble. How often do we hear about abused or murdered kids that haven't been in school in weeks or months? Don't we wonder why the authorities weren't notified or no one at the school looked further into all of the absences?

I know that this is the extreme and not at all what Medussa is talking about. Just my $.02

Originally Posted by solange

Very true. Or just kids whose parents don't send them to school. I know parents who don't care if their small children go to school or not. My cousin will keep her kids out of school for weeks just because she doesn't feel like taking them.

But, that being said, if the teacher knows about it beforehand, the child is doing well in school, and has regular attendance, I don't see how it should be a problem.

Here, the money the school get is directly tied to the number of butts in the seat each day. That is why they are IMHO total freaks about kids not coming to school.

Personally, I don't give a rip. It's my family and we are gonna do it how we do it. Just to add, we are not yet in the school system, that starts in ?Sept.

(vivasmom starts weeping into her hands) LOL

Originally Posted by vivasmom

Yeah, that's how I feel- and we ARE in the school system. I understand the reasons behind the attendance policies, but I *hate* the undertone that I'm not equipped to make decisions about my child's education. It's another example of lowest- common- denominator policymaking.

Here are the things that are excused in my district: illness, death in the family, court summons, religious holiday. That's it. Family vacations are definitely unexcused. The difference is that parents have to attend meetings for excessive (5 or more) UNexcused absences. Beyond that, they can end up going to court and being fined...or child services might supervise them for truancy deprived/educational neglect.
Attendance is part of adequate yearly progress (AYP). If schools have poor attendance, they won't meet AYP, and this causes problems as far as money and reputation are concerned.
Also, even if the student is a good student, they are missing valuable class time. Even if they can make up the work, they have still missed the discussions, lessons, and activities. I know some parents are good at trying to make up for that, but in my school that rarely happens. Also, I think having good attendance is an important value that a lot of our students are missing. Many of our parents and kids don't value education.